SPIRITUAL LIFE: Risky journey in support of a cause

In mid-July, Deborah Walters, a 63-year-old grandmother, began a solo, 2,500-mile kayaking trip from Maine to Guatemala.

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By Suzette Martinez StandringFor The Patriot Ledger

The Dedham Transcript

By Suzette Martinez StandringFor The Patriot Ledger

Posted Jul. 26, 2014 at 8:00 AM
Updated Jul 27, 2014 at 10:46 AM

By Suzette Martinez StandringFor The Patriot Ledger

Posted Jul. 26, 2014 at 8:00 AM
Updated Jul 27, 2014 at 10:46 AM

» Social News

She’s kayaking 2,500 miles to give poor children a reason to dream.

In mid-July, Deborah Walters, a 63-year-old grandmother, began a solo, 2,500-mile kayaking trip from Maine to Guatemala.

No stranger to wilderness, she once camped alone near polar bears on a six-week expedition to the Arctic. Now she’s paddling to raise awareness for Safe Passage, an education program that changes the lives of families who live inside the teeming garbage dumps near Guatemala City.

She expects to reach Pleasure Bay in South Boston on Aug. 7, and will talk about her experiences and her expedition at the Milton Public Library at 7 p.m.

The trip has been seven years in the making.

“Safe Passage is dear to my heart. I knew I had to get involved,” she said.

About nine years ago, she visited the dumps near Guatemala City, and the methane gas, rot and stench made it almost unbearable. Yet families dwell in shanties on landfill created by tons of waste and scavenge through the filth for anything to be sold or recycled. Walters, who has a doctorate in neurocommunications, spoke to the parents and learned how Safe Passage had made the difference between having no hope and having dreams for the future.

Some of the 10,000 people who live there have been served for the last 15 years by Safe Passage (Camino Seguro), which was founded in 1999 by Hanley Denning, an American. She had gone to Guatemala to study Spanish, but was moved to action by the desperate plight of the poor.

It began with schooling 46 children. Now Safe Passage operates an early childhood center and an adult literacy program, all housed in a separate and safe location.

Denning was killed in a car accident in 2007, but her work continues through volunteers like Walters, who will speak at various venues along coastal stops of her 2,500-mile trip, all to bring attention and help to Safe Passage.

Does a spiritual philosophy fuel her efforts?

“I was raised in a peace church (Quaker) and in that religious tradition, there was no creed, no dogma and we believed that each person would interpret it themselves. We’re all looking at the universe from different perspectives. We all see a different piece of the same thing.”

During the journey, she will need help. The waters along the Mexican coast are treacherous, and small craft are warned of pirates, drug cartels and gunpoint attacks.

From Key West to Belize, Walters and her kayak will be carried aboard a boat owned by supporter Bernie Horn, president of Polaris Capital Management in Boston, and crewed by Safe Passage board member Richard Howe of Milton. Once in safer waters, Walters again will paddle solo for 250 miles along the Barrier Reef and open coast to reach Guatemala.

Page 2 of 2 - “I like meeting people and I love learning from them. I spent three hours with a kid in Guatemala. I was so pleased that at the end, the young boy said, ‘You are my teacher and I am your teacher and we are equal.’

“Any little thing that changes the way they look at themselves is wonderful.”

Email Suzette Standring at suzmar@comcast.net. She is the author of “The Art of Opinion Writing: Insider Secrets from Top Op-Ed Columnists.”